“When an Elephant Has Its Foot on the Tail of a Mouse…” Trauma-Focused Court Preparation Interventions for Sexually Abused Child Witnesses

Abstract

Background: This paper addresses the issue of court preparation in a lower middle-income country with recently enacted child sexual abuse (CSA) legislation and almost no precedence of standard child witness training packages or protocols. Aims & methods: Taking into consideration the potential impact of the adversarial system on children and the legal system’s concerns regarding the risk of contamination of evidence and based on assessment and analysis of children’s mental health concerns and consequent capacities for testimony, it describes a set of court preparation interventions designed for a group of vulnerable, sexually abused children from a childcare institution. Results: In recognition of the heightened challenges to their competency to testify in court, the paper highlights the importance of developmental and trauma-focused considerations, particularly in the context of children with adverse childhood experiences, and consequently the role of child mental health service providers in the practice of child forensic psychiatry in the context of CSA. Conclusions: It concludes by challenging established assumptions that tend to underlie court preparation programs for child witnesses and by making recommendations for additional considerations to be incorporated into child witness training in order to enhance child witness competency and child mental health and well-being and to augment victim-oriented procedural justice aspects for vulnerable witnesses in the adversarial justice system.